~The MCME Sunday Times~ [04/27/14]

Minecraft Middle Earth is a Minecraft community that recreates the world described by JRR Tolkien and his writings. Everyone can participate in organized events in which we collaborate to create major landmarks, terrain, caves, castles, towns, farms and more.

Hardcore MCME-er

Grab a croissant or other french pastry delight, sit back, and enjoy the Fourth Edition of the MCME Times. There have been a lot of things going on project wise this week which is always exciting to see. So if you missed something going on this week, do not worry, as the Times will catch you up on everything and anything MCME that has been and will be happening!

~Projects~

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Minas Tirith (In Progress): The much anticipated Minas Tirith freebuild has opened to the public! Be sure to help out and build a house for the wonderful white city of Gondor after reading the guide found HERE. Plenty of houses have already been built and accepted so be sure to get in on this sooner rather then later!

Pelennor Fields (Done): Be sure to congratulate @wodleth on finishing up his project as well as check it out by warping to Minas Tirith and exploring all of the farms and crops.

Gondorian Villages (Finishing Touches): A lot of work was done this past week on adding the last few crops, houses, and details throughout the Northern villages. These projects turned out great thanks to the organization of @Glovenator so be sure to congratulate him for his work. The screenshots above feature just some of the great villages so be sure to walk the paths and find them all!

Osgiliath, Cair Andros, & Ithilien (On Hold): Waiting on project leaders due to real world commitments that take precedence. Again, we apologize for the inconvenience and hope to have these up and running soon.

~Screenshot of the Week~

This week features @pheonixsang 's 64x64 resourcepack that she has been working on and developing, shows you what you can do even with our crazy texturing system! Anyhow, check out THIS post if you want to learn more, otherwise here is a screenshot of her work.

~Status Updates~

Promotions:
Congratulations to both @DragonHorizon and @gigo09 for their promotions to Ranger this week. Be sure to look for their upcoming tours or friendly tips!

Resignation:
None this week. (Yay)

~The Community~

@q220 announced a new Management Structure to the community HERE. This update in the way that MCME works looks to improve the rank duties as well as the workflow as a whole while introducing new systems such as auditing to the community projects. Keep an eye out for these changes in the future.

@Shmattins and @BevsForBros (as well as many others) are working hard to take out the last few bugs of the Adventure Map. Keep watching THIS thread to see progress updates and how the crew is doing when it comes to getting this amazing project out the door. There will likely be an official announcement once the map is released to the MCME community and the general public.

Have you seen the MCME Timeline? @bobingvar has helped develop a great system for keeping track of both player and server wide events. If you think you deserve a spot on the MCME timeline, be sure to add your date of arrival or major promotion for the world to see and keep track of. Otherwise, this is a great place to keep track of promotions and other important dates.

@JordD04 has compiled A Noobs Guide to Lore which is a great resource for people who want to become more familiar and develop a better understanding of many of the intricate lore details in a concise, well written resource compiled into one space. For more information, look HERE.

@Iru recently uploaded the revised MCME Bounder Manual to the forums for the public to see. If you are interested, be sure to check it out and give it a read through whether you are considering Bounder as a position, want to know more about how things work, or just have nothing better to do.

If you are interested in developing texture Resources for MCME, be sure to check out the list of priority textures found here. Dont hesitate to try as you never know how good you might be until you give it a whirl. These textures can be submitted onto Github to be incorporated into the official resourcepacks.

One bored afternoon in late 2012 I ended up watching a YouTube video which somehow was about minecraft and middle-earth, because well, you easily get to places on YouTube you didn’t initially intend to end up… As far as I can remember the video wasn’t about MCME but I started googling for a Middle Earth Minecraft server as only shortly before I joined another server which was like a whole new world to me after years of singleplayer MC gaming. So I applied and got whitelisted on 2nd january 2013; and I was never seen on the other server again.

What was it like when you were a thrall/commoner (droog/member)? Any nostalgic moments?

Actually I have merely no concrete memories from that time, there were no engraving jobs these days, no river digs or desert coverings, only some leftover Rohan grassing. But there’s one moment I won’t forget: The day I joined first as Commoner. I logged out the day before on top of the gigantic Smaug over Hobbiton and when I wanted to jump off the next day I didn’t reach the bottom as fast as expected.

What was the first staff rank you got? Why did you apply/shoot for that rank in particular?

For quite a long time I was fully satisfied with the rank Artist as it was such a pain getting it, mainly because over months nobody checked the apps, and for a long time I didn’t even think about ever being a staff member and when the idea and the initially only faint wish arose I didn’t do anything to make it come true beside participating in most Artist jobs. But when the rank application forum first appeared I didn’t wait long until I applied for Artisan. The main reason why it was Artisan was that I didn’t like to use Teamspeak as, even if my written english may be quite good, I do really suck at speaking it.

Is there any type of architecture or server job that you enjoy working on the most? Why?

My favourite architecture style is by far everything elves-related but I also love dwarven stuff. I guess its just that I like the invented races more because it is possible to fill gaps in the lore concerning everyday life and culture with own ideas which kinda isn’t possible in the same extent for human related stuff.

What is your favorite thing about MCME?

Among my IRL friends theres no place to live out my great passion towards Middle-Earth and such things, but on MCME there is. I love being able to work and talk with so many people that share these interests and the project itself still amazes me. Also its just a very great honour to be able to contribute to something that so many people put their hearts into.

Do you have any other hobbies outside of MCME (besides MC and gaming)?

Even though I thought for long that I am really no great fan of languages (especially French) I started studying elvish languages some years ago. By now I have my own website where I translate elvish for everyone that wants an elvish tattoo or a wedding ring with elvish inscription (which is awesome as long as they don’t take the ring inscription from Sauron’s ring). Only some months ago I even could come up with elvish lyrics for professionally produced songs which was really awesome, even more as the album reached #7 in the german album charts

Beside that I play the drums and other percussion instruments since over ten years by now and am actively playing it in five orchestras. At the moment I am doing my military service which is still compulsive in Switzerland, but I am one of the very few that can do it as military musician which is (as of week 7) pretty comfy; good food, quite some free time and merely enough sleep, things that aren’t usual in military. I’ll be full-time back to MCME from 1st of august onwards.​

~Closing Statement~

Hopefully you enjoyed this weeks edition, as well as your french pastry choice, as their were a lot of different community and project related updates that occurred this week which is always good.